legal age for working

[whacker]

what is the legal age for working in a pub or local club for serving.

[Ethel]

18

[hayley2956]

i do believe it is now 16 to serve alcohol in a pub due to the change in licensing laws

[dannydingbat]

Wrong. Section 153 of the Licensing Act 2003 changed these provisions with effect from 24th November last year. A person of any age can sell alcohol in a bar provided that each sale is authorised by the licence holder, the designated premises supervisor or someone else over 18 who is authorised for such purposes. In a restaurant, this restriction does not apply and a person of any age can sell alcohol without this authorisation provided it is to go with a table meal.



Have a look at the Act at



www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2003/30017--h.htm#153

[Buenchico]

Danny's post is spot on. (That's hardly surprising. If I recall previous posts correctly, Danny is a solicitor and licensing is his specialist field).

The only purpose of my post is to stress that it's only legal for a person under 18 to serve alcohol in a bar if each individual sale is authorised by an appropriate person. This is the same as the situation in a supermarket where young check-out operators have to seek the permission of an adult colleague every time someone buys alcohol. The supermarket manager can't give 'blanket permission' for a young person to sell alcohol and neither can a bar manager. So, although a person under 18 can theoretically serve alcohol, in practice nobody under 18 is likely to be employed behind a bar because no bar manager would want to have to authorise every single sale on a busy Saturday night.

Chris

[ugly_bob]

My mate's sister works behind the bar in a pub down the road from me. She's only 17. I thought it was illegal, but it turns out it's not since these new licensing laws came in.
The landlord can usually be found sitting at the end of the bar getting drunk.

[dannydingbat]

Just a small correction Chris - I'm not a solicitor but a Local Authority lawyer (studying for the exams) with a background of 17 years dealing with licensing applications. Licensing is my speciality and I advise my local Licensing Committee as to what they can and can't do. I do all I can to help non specialists to understand this ill thought out and over complicated new law and will shortly be launching a dedicated new licensing website (thelicensingguru.co.uk) with many FAQs like this one.